The Big Picture
by peroxidepest17
Summary: No one is completely alone.


**Title:** The Big Picture  
**Universe: **XXXHolic  
**Theme/Topic: **N/A  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Doumeki, Watanuki  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Spoilers for Chapter 159.  
**Word Count:** 1,000  
**Su****mmary:** No one is completely alone.  
**Dedication:** shiroro- thanks for the encouragement! LOL I could not work choco into the script tho. XD  
**A/N:** I finished the first draft of my spec script today and thought I'd take a break and write something for fun. LOL Then this suddenly turned out to be hard for no good reason at all. And kind of weird. Clearly it has been a billion years. Also I don't have any clue if the manga suggested they met before this? Does anyone know for sure?  
**Disclaimer:** No harm is meant by this!

* * *

Practice gets called early that day, on account of the rain.

"We can't see any of the targets when there's a storm raging like this," the upperclassmen decide, and tell the rest of the team to go home early that afternoon, to take the day off and enjoy it while they can. "Be thankful that Kami-sama has decided to give you all a holiday for today," they joke, though not before vowing to the members that they will simply have to work doubly hard tomorrow, to make up for the deficit.

Doumeki doesn't argue with them, even though—for some reason— he can still see the targets from where he stands, clear as day.

He silently packs up and leaves along with everyone else.

Coincidentally—or perhaps inevitably is the better word— those are the series of events that lead up to the moment that will change Doumeki's life forever that afternoon, while he is on his way home from school in the pouring rain, a little earlier than usual.

Later, he will look back on it and realize that everything is fated.

Because on his way home from school that day, he finds himself stopping abruptly, when he sees a boy standing alone by the riverbank without an umbrella, soaked to the bone without realizing it.

The boy is wearing the uniform from their school as he stands at the water's edge, gazing out into the distance with the emptiest eyes Doumeki has ever seen. His face is vaguely familiar somehow, an existence that has always been on the hazy periphery of Doumeki's own. That is until now however, when everything somehow sharpens and becomes clear for him, despite the pouring rain.

_Watanuki Kimihiro_, his mind supplies suddenly, without prompting. _A classmate_.

And in his arms, the body of a small, white dog. Unmoving. Cold.

Being raised in a temple, Doumeki has encountered death enough times to know it immediately when he sees it. It doesn't faze him like it does some people; his grandfather always used to tell him that dying is as necessary to life as breathing.

It is simply an unavoidable thing.

_Watanuki Kimihiro has found death today_, Doumeki realizes, as he looks down at the scene before him. He sees all of it much more clearly than he should. _It's just how these things go_.

He says a quick prayer for the dog and turns to continue on his way after that, to move on and move forward as all living things should because death is not something to linger on while one is still alive.

But before he can— even though he shouldn't be able to from so far away— he hears it.

"I'll die like this too," Watanuki Kimihiro's voice says softly, as he clutches the still white dog against his chest. "Alone."

Even in all this rain, Doumeki hears it clear as day, like Watanuki Kimihiro is standing right next to him. Those careless words stop him in his tracks.

_It's annoying somehow_, Doumeki thinks suddenly, without knowing why. _Incredibly annoying_.

In that moment, Doumeki decides that Watanuki Kimihiro is simply an idiot, standing there in the rain like he is, cradling a dead animal while lamenting loneliness, while speculating on the puppy's final moments without knowing anything at all about them.

It's stupid because Doumeki is sure that Watanuki Kimihiro only wandered upon this scene somewhere in the middle of the story; he had probably begun to mourn without stopping to figure out how any of it came to be like this first.

Doumeki on the other hand, can see the big picture—the complete story— from where he stands, clear as day. Perhaps it's due to their vastly different vantage points, Doumeki at the top of the hill looking down while Watanuki Kimihiro lingers at the bottom, looking off into nowhere.

Things are not simply as they appear at all.

No one here is alone.

Because when Doumeki turns his head to the right he finds more of the story right there in front of him, as it crouches not far from where Watanuki is standing, a ragged splash of white visible even through the thick sheets of rain splattering on the ground. It's hidden in the bushes nearby, watching that stupid boy as well. Doumeki notices how it quivers violently from the cold, or maybe from the sudden, painful loss.

"I'm sorry about that idiot," Doumeki finds himself saying quietly, to the frightened eyes that are ensconced within the thin shelter of the bush's leaves. Whether the second dog can hear him or not, he feels the need to say it out loud anyway. "I'm sorry about him; he must have scared you so suddenly. It's only natural to hide after what you've been through."

The dog seems to blink back at Doumeki for a moment, its big, sad eyes telling Doumeki exactly how the rest of the story goes.

"I'm sure your friend was grateful," Doumeki adds next, because he feels the need to say that as well. A minute later, the second dog lowers its nose and slinks back into the shadows, out of sight.

Down below, stupid Watanuki Kimihiro smiles sadly and begins to bury the dead dog by himself, getting on his hands and knees on the wet dirt. "I'm sorry you were alone at such a time," he murmurs to it one last time, and Doumeki feels something a lot like anger start to bubble up somewhere in his chest when he hears it.

He turns to leave eventually, when he can't watch anymore, when he feels himself beginning to lose patience with the other boy's calmly resigned, sadly empty smile.

It's annoying because Watanuki Kimihiro obviously doesn't notice the big picture that Doumeki can see, as clear as day right in front of him despite the rain.

Doumeki knows that in a world this vast and full of life, no one is completely alone.

It's impossible.

That day, he decides to prove it.

**END**


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